An Improper Aristocrat

‘Oh, if you could only see your expression, sir! I never thought so, you may rest assured.’ He wisely refrained from comment and she helped him rise and motioned him to a chair before she continued. ‘Can you imagine the speculation you would be subject to, should you take a bride of three and twenty? And though society’s gossip is nothing to me, I could never be comfortable marrying a man I have always regarded as an honorary uncle.’

Chione tilted her head and smiled upon her grandfather’s closest friend. ‘And yet, although I’ve said as much to Mrs Ferguson, I’m afraid that, since you have no intention of marrying me, she has no further use for you.’

The viscount still stared. ‘I confess, such a solution has never occurred to me! I know I’ve told you more than once that a marriage might solve your problems, but to be wedded to an old dog like me?’ He shuddered. ‘What if, against all odds, you are right and Mervyn does come back after being missing all these months? He’d skin me alive!’

Chione smiled. ‘Mervyn himself married a younger woman, but he did so out of love. He’d skin us both if we married for any other reason.’

‘You are doubtless right.’ He sat back. ‘Not every man in his dotage has the energy that your grandfather possessed, my dear. There is not another man in a hundred that would contemplate a second family at such an age.’ He smiled wryly. ‘So sorry to disrupt Mrs Ferguson’s plans. I suppose now it will be stale bread on the tea tray instead of fresh bannocks and honey.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Chione chuckled now. ‘But I would not put it past her.’

‘Actually, I did have a bit of news for you, but before we settle to it, I must ask—where are the children?’

‘Olivia is napping.’ She smiled and answered the question she knew he was truly asking. ‘Will has gone fishing and taken the dog with him. You are safe enough.’

The viscount visibly relaxed. ‘Thank heavens. The pair of them is all it takes to make me feel my own age. Leave it to Mervyn to spawn such a duo and then leave them to someone else to raise!’ He smiled to take the sting from his words. ‘When you throw that hell-hound into the mix, it is more than my nerves can handle.’

Mrs Ferguson re-entered the library with a clatter. She placed the tea tray down with a bit more force than necessary. ‘Will ye be needing anything else, miss?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Ferguson.’

‘Fine, then. I’ll be close enough to hear,’ she said with emphasis, ‘should ye require anything at all.’ She left, pointedly leaving the door wide open.

Lord Renhurst was morose. ‘I knew it. Tea with bread and butter.’

Chione poured him a dish of tea. ‘I do apologise, my lord. It may not be you at all. Honey is more difficult than butter for us to obtain these days.’

He set his dish down abruptly. ‘Tell me things are not so bad as that, Chione.’

She gazed calmly back at him. ‘Things are not so bad as that.’

‘I damned well expect you to tell me if they are not.’

Chione merely passed him the tray of buttered bread.

He glared at her. ‘Damn the Latimer men and their recklessness!’ He raised a hand as she started to object. ‘No, I’ve been friends with Mervyn for more than twenty years, I’ve earned the right to throw a curse or two his way.’ He shook his head. ‘Disappeared to parts unknown. No good explanation to a living soul, just muttering about something vital that needed to be done! Now he’s been missing for what—near a year and half again? Then Richard is killed five months ago in some godforsaken desert and here you are left alone. With two children and this mausoleum of a house to look after, and no funds with which to do so.’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘No one respects your strength and fortitude more than I, my dear, but if it has become too much for you to handle alone, I want you to come to me.’

Chione sighed. The longer Mervyn stayed missing, the worse her situation grew, but still, this was a conversation she never wished to have. It was true, her life was a mess, and her family’s circumstances were hopelessly entangled. It was universally known, and tacitly ignored, at least in their insular little village and along the rugged coast of Devonshire. Chione coped as best she could, but she did not discuss it. She was a Latimer.

She winced a little at the untruth of that statement. All the world knew her as a Latimer, in any case, and in her heart she was truly a part of this family. She would prevail, as Latimers always had, no matter how difficult the situation they found themselves in.

She stiffened her spine and cast a false smile at Lord Renhurst. ‘We are fine, my lord. We have learned to practise economies. Now come, what news have you?’

‘Economies!’ he snorted. ‘Mervyn built Latimer Shipping with his own two hands. If he ever found out what a mess it’s become and how his family has been obliged to live…’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve spoken with the banks again, but they refuse to budge. They will not release Mervyn’s funds until some definitive word is had of him.’

‘Thank you for trying, in any case.’ She sighed.

‘Least I could do,’ he mumbled. ‘Wanted to tell you, too, that I went to the Antiquarian Society, as you asked.’

Chione was brought to instant attention. ‘Oh, my lord, thank you! Did you speak with the gentleman I mentioned? Did Mr Bartlett know anything of use?’

‘He offers you his sincerest condolences, but could only tell me that, yes, Richard did indeed spend a great deal of time in their collection before he left for Egypt.’

‘Could he not tell you specifically what Richard was looking for?’

‘He could not.’

She closed her eyes in disappointment. Chione knew that Richard had been hiding something; something about her grandfather’s disappearance, she suspected. Now his secrets had died along with her brother. Trying to ferret out the one kept her from dwelling on the other. But it was more than that. She needed to find her grandfather, and the sooner the better. She refused to consider what the rest of the world believed: that he was most likely dead as well.

‘Bartlett did say that he spent a great deal of time with a Mr Alden. Scholar of some sort. He recommended that you speak with him if you wished to know what was occupying your brother’s interest.’

Chione brightened immediately. ‘Alden,’ she mused. ‘The name is familiar. Yes, I believe I have read something of his. I shall look through Mervyn’s journals.’ She turned to Lord Renhurst and smiled. ‘Thank you so much. You are a very great friend, to all of us.’

The viscount blinked, and then sat a moment, silently contemplating her. ‘You think this is something to do with the Lost Jewel, don’t you?’ he asked.

‘I fear so,’ she answered simply. ‘But I hope not.’

‘I hope not, as well.’ His disapproval was clear. ‘You are in a devil of a fix already, my dear, without adding in a lot of nonsense about pharaohs and mysterious lost treasures.’

‘We might think it a parcel of nonsense, but you know that Richard believed in it. As does Mervyn.’ To put it simply, they had wanted to believe. The men in Chione’s family were adventurers in heart and deed. They craved travel and excitement as fervently as the débutantes of the ton craved young and single heirs to a dukedom, as constantly as the opium eaters of her mother’s country craved their drug.

Chione cast her gaze down at her tea. What she craved were far simpler things: food for the table, a warmer coat for Will, the ability to pay her remaining servants’ wages. But she would achieve none of those by drinking tea with Lord Renhurst.

‘Do try not to worry, my lord. We shall muddle through.’ Strategically, she paused and cocked her head. ‘Listen, do you hear barking?’

The viscount’s manner abruptly changed. He set down his dish of tea. ‘Well, then,’ he said briskly, ‘we will scheme together to bring you about, but another time. I cannot stay longer today.’

Chione had to hide her smile at his sudden eagerness to be gone. ‘Of course. Thank you so much for talking with Mr Bartlett for me.’

‘Certainly.’ He paused and a stern expression settled once more over his features. ‘I’ve let you have your way so far, Chione, but I’m watching you closely. If I need to step in, I will.’

‘I appreciate your concern, sir.’

He offered his arm, listening intently. ‘Will you walk me out? I must be off.’

Chione resisted the impish urge to drag her feet. They stepped outside and she wrapped her shawl tighter about her shoulders. She breathed deep of the sea scent blowing strong on the wind. It was the kind of wind that brought change, her grandfather had always said. She closed her eyes and hoped it would bring change. She hoped it would bring him home again.

‘Good day to you, Chione. We will speak again soon.’ Lord Renhurst’s groom pulled his phaeton up to the house and he hurried towards it. He skidded to a stop, however, when a horse and rider suddenly emerged from the wooded section of the drive.

The sun obscured her view, and Chione caught her breath, believing for an instant that she had indeed wished Mervyn Latimer home. The rider approached, and stopped in front of the house, allowing her to see that it was not the imposing form of her missing grandfather, but that of a younger man instead.

A man, indeed, and a specimen of the species like she had never seen.

Most of the men in the village were fishermen, gnarled from their constant battle against wind and sea. Lord Renhurst and her grandfather were older, and stout with good living. Her brother had always looked exactly what he had been—a rumpled, slightly grubby scholar. But this man…She gave a little sigh. He dismounted and she could not look away. He stood tall, broad and powerful. He looked, in fact, as if he could have ridden straight from the pages of one of her adventure novels.

As if he had heard her thoughts, he strode boldly towards the house. The closer he came, the faster her heart began to trip. He stopped and the skin on Chione’s nape prickled, every tiny hair there standing at quivering attention.

‘Good day,’ he said to the viscount, who still stood in the drive. ‘I am looking for Oakwood Court.’

His clothing looked as unusual as he. A coat of dark green, made of fine material, but cut loose, with a multitude of pockets. Snug trousers and scuffed, comfortable-looking boots. His linen was clean and his neckcloth a bit limp, as if he had been tugging at it.

‘You’ve found it, sir,’ Lord Renhurst replied. Chione thought he might have conversed further if not for a loud and happy bark that sounded suddenly nearby. ‘Sorry, must be off,’ he said as he edged towards his phaeton. Gravel crunched as the vehicle began to move, then the viscount twisted around on the seat. He looked back at her visitor and advised loudly, ‘Good God, man, take off your hat!’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ The gentleman removed said article and turned to face Chione once more. He raked her with an assessing glance and his face softened a bit. ‘Can you tell me where I might find Miss Latimer?’

Chione’s mouth went dry. Gracious, but the man could not be real. He did not speak, he rumbled, with low tones that she could feel, echoing in the bones behind her ear, vibrating in the pit of her belly. His hair was too long to be fashionable, and dark. Nearly as dark as her own, in fact. Yet his eyes were the same colour as the cerulean sky overhead. It was a striking combination, especially when set off by sun-browned skin.

She swallowed and forced herself to gather her wits. ‘Yes, I am Miss Latimer,’ she said. But Lord Renhurst’s last words finally dawned on her and made her realise how near the dog’s barking had come. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said.

The gentleman was oblivious to the danger. ‘Miss Latimer, it is a pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve come a great distance to find you.’ He bowed. ‘I am Treyford.’

The barking had grown louder still and had changed in tone. Chione could see the beast now, coming from the stables. She was no longer making noise for the sheer fun of it, now she was broadcasting a frenzy of doggy ecstasy.

‘The pleasure is mine,’ Chione strode down the steps towards her visitor. ‘Pray, do excuse me.’ She reached up and snatched the very fine beaver hat from the man’s grasp just before the dog reached them. Then she turned and threw the thing away with all her might.

Trey’s jaw dropped as his brand new hat sailed out to the middle of the gravelled drive. Good God, was the girl mad? Was this why Richard had been so adamant that Trey protect his sister?

He soon realised his mistake. The largest, ugliest dog he had ever seen came out of nowhere and pounced on the hat with a yelp of joy. The creature shook the thing as if to break it, tossed it in the air, growled ferociously at it, then settled down right there in the drive and began to tear into it with powerful jaws.

‘I am sorry,’ Miss Latimer said, ‘but she would have knocked you flat in order to get it.’

The lady looked at him at last. He saw recognition in her eyes—eyes so dark they appeared nearly black. Slightly slanted, they were rimmed with the most astonishing eyelashes he had ever seen.

‘Treyford, did you say?’ she asked. ‘As in the Earl of Treyford? How nice to meet you at last! I feel we must know you already, so frequently did Richard mention you in his letters.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘But what a surprise to find you in England, my lord. I had thought you meant to stay and continue your work in Egypt.’

A shout from what he took to be the path to the stables distracted her, and Trey seized the opportunity to study the girl. She looked younger than he had expected. Richard had spoken often of his older sister and it had been obvious that they were close, her support a steady influence that Richard had relied upon. He knew she must be near to five and twenty, but she still looked little more than a girl.

She was also prettier than he had expected—a far cry from the strong-willed spinster he had imagined. Her skin was flawless, with a slight exotically olive tint, but still very pale in contrast to her dark eyes and even darker hair. Her face, finely moulded with high cheekbones, was set in a serious expression, as if she carried heavy burdens.

The shout came again, and Trey recognised her name.

‘Chione! Just see what I’ve got!’

Her face had softened. ‘It is young Will,’ she said, as if that explained anything. ‘Most likely covered in mud, but do not fear. I will not allow him near enough to ruin any more of your wardrobe.’

‘Chione!’ The boy came into view. He looked perhaps nine or ten years old, and carried a large open basket that bounced against his side as he ran. He was indeed slathered head to foot in mud.

‘Beef, Chione!’ he called in triumph. ‘I was walking past the vicarage with my string of fish and Mrs Thompson called out to me. She vowed she had been longing for her cook’s fish stew, and she asked me to trade. An entire joint of beef, can you imagine? I’ve got it right here!’

‘How nice, Will,’ Miss Latimer began, but a look of caution crossed her face as the boy drew near. ‘Watch your feet. Careful!’

The warning came too late. The brim of Trey’s beaver hat had come completely detached and lay directly in the boy’s path. Even as her warning rang out, his feet became tangled and he went down heavily, the basket flying out ahead of him.

The cloth-wrapped bundle within took flight. Trey watched, prophetically sure of its trajectory even before it landed, with a splat, in his arms. He looked down at the stain that now managed to decorate both his coat and his linen, and then he glared at the disastrous duo before him.

Miss Latimer was solicitously helping the boy to his feet. ‘My lord, we would be pleased if you would stay to dinner.’ She indicated the dripping bundle in his arms. ‘As you see, we shall be dining on roast beef.’

Chapter Two

Trey was in the grip of an excessively bad mood. He had travelled halfway round the world, only to end up in Bedlam. He had given his word, and so he had given up Egypt. And he had ended up in a madhouse.

It hadn’t been his first impression. He’d left the village this afternoon, taking the coastal path as directed, and he’d thought this must be one of the most wild and beautiful spots on the Earth. Oddly enough, he found himself uncomfortable with the surrounding lushness. After the spare desert beauty of Egypt, this part of Devon appeared to be blessed with an embarrassment of riches: stunning ocean views of harbour and bay, woodlands full of gnarled trees, rocky cliffs, and charming dells bursting with early springtime displays.

Oakwood Court blended right into the undisciplined vista. The long, meandering drive left the coastal path and took one on a leisurely trip through a wooded grove, then abruptly broke free to cross a sweeping lawn. A traveller found oneself gifted with a stunning tableau of a many-gabled Elizabethan manor nestled against a rising, wooded slope. It was a distinctive old house, full of character.

Trey had never met Mervyn Latimer, Richard’s famous grandfather, who had won a cargo ship in a card game and turned it into one of the biggest shipping companies in England. Yet just by spending a short amount of time in his house, Trey felt as if he knew something of the eccentric old man. His larger-than-life presence fairly permeated the place, along with many fascinating objects that must have been collected throughout his travels.

And although the many curiosities hanging on walls, gracing the tables and filling the shelves of the house were interesting, they were as nothing compared to the arresting collection of human oddities he’d found here.

Directly after Trey’s heroic rescue of dinner—the boy’s words—his horse had been taken up by the groom. The wizened little man with a peg leg looked as if he belonged in the rigging of a Barbary pirate’s ship. Yet he soothed the fidgety horse with a soft voice and gentle hands, and the skittish hack followed after him like a lamb.

Trey, in all his greased and bloodied glory, had been handed over to the housekeeper. A dour Scot if he had ever met one, she wore a constant frown, spoke in gruff tones, and carried heavy buckets of water as if they weighed nothing. Yet she worked with brisk efficiency and made sure he had everything a gentleman could ask for his toilet. Save, perhaps, clothes that fit.

She’d come to fetch him once he was changed into some of Richard’s left-behind things, rasping out a crotchety, ‘Come along with ye, then, to the drawing room.’ He did, stalking after the woman along a long corridor with many framed maps upon the wall, and down a dark stairwell.

One notion struck Trey as they moved through the large house. There was a curious lack of activity. There were no enticing kitchen smells, no butler guarding the door, no footmen to carry water, no maids dusting the collection of bric-a-brac. Trey might be the black sheep of his family and a dark hole on the glittering map of the ton, but he had grown up in a substantial house and knew the kind of activity required to run it. The lack was somehow unnerving, and lent the house a stale, unused air. Somehow it felt more like an unkempt museum than a home.

Eventually they arrived on the first floor, and the housekeeper stopped before a richly panelled door. She pushed it open without preamble, stood aside and said, ‘In here.’ Without even waiting to see him cross the threshold, she shuffled off towards the back of the house.

Trey entered to find yet another room filled with the inanimate detritus of a well-travelled collector. And one animate specimen.

It was a child, of perhaps two or three years. Trey blanched. The only thing more inherently threatening than a respectable female was a child, and this one was both. She was very pretty, with long chestnut curls, but her heart-shaped face was smeared and her grubby little hands were leaving marks on the sofa she stood upon.

‘Livvie do it,’ she said, pointing down behind the piece of furniture.

Why the devil would a child be left alone in the parlour? Suppressing a sigh, Trey crossed the room to peer into the narrow space she indicated. The wall behind the sofa was smudged with what looked to be honey and a crumbled mess lay on the floor below. ‘Yes,’ he agreed with the solemn-faced sprite. ‘You did do it, didn’t you?’

She sighed and abruptly lifted both hands towards him.

Trey grimaced. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, shaking his head.

She only grunted and lifted her demanding little arms again.

Trey decided to take charge. Children responded to authority, did they not? ‘Come down from there,’ he said firmly. ‘We shall find the irresponsible creature meant to be in charge of you.’ He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor.

The child’s lower lip poked out and started to tremble. Great, fat tears welled in her brown eyes. ‘Up,’ she whimpered.

Hell and high water, were females born knowing how to manipulate? It must be a skill transferred from mother to daughter in the womb. Well, stubbornness was the gift his mother has passed to him, or so he’d been told many times in his own childhood. ‘No,’ he said more firmly still. ‘Now hop down from there at once.’

The tears swelled and ran over, making tracks on her dirty cheeks. ‘Uuuuuppp!’ she wailed, and her little body began to shake with the force of her sobs.

Oh, Lord, no. ‘Don’t do that,’ Trey commanded. ‘I’m picking you up.’ Grimacing in distaste, he plucked her off the sofa, trying to keep her at arm’s length. Quicker than a flash, more subtly done than the most precise of military manoeuvres, she foiled his effort and nestled up tightly against him.

Trey was suddenly and fiercely glad of the borrowed coat he wore. Underneath the chit’s sweet honey smell lurked a more suspicious odour. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said, ‘and find your keeper.’

The door opened with a bang and a distracted Miss Latimer rushed in. ‘Oh, no,’ she gasped, rushing forward to take the child.

‘Shone!’ cried the little girl. ‘She-own! Livvie do it.’

‘I do beg your pardon, my lord.’ Miss Latimer strode back to the doorway and shouted in a most unladylike fashion, ‘I’ve found her!’

The dour housekeeper arrived a moment later. She never glanced at Trey, but took the child and scowled at her young mistress. ‘She’s taken a plate of bannocks with her,’ she said with a roll of her eyes, ‘so there’s no tellin’ where we’ll find the mess later.’

Miss Latimer shot an inquiring look at him. Trey had not the smallest desire to witness the fuss created should that discovery be made. He shrugged and maintained an air of innocence, and the young lady soon bundled the girl and the older woman out of the door.

Miss Latimer winced. ‘I must apologise, my lord. Our household has been greatly diminished since Richard’s death and Olivia will wander.’ She continued on, but Trey was not listening. He knew he was glowering at her, but he could not help himself.

God’s teeth, but he could not get over how beautiful she was. Her heavy, black tresses shone, as black as the moods that plagued him, as dark as any he had seen in his travels to the east. It was the perfect foil for her exotic skin, just exactly the tawny colour of moonlight on the desert sands.

Her eyes, framed by those lush lashes, agitated him. They were too old for her young and beautiful face. It was as if she had experienced too much sorrow, too much of the dark side of life, and it could not be contained. It spilled out of her, tinting her gaze with mystery, with knowing.

He realised most men would find her beauty fascinating, but damn it, this was exactly the sort of situation in which a man couldn’t afford to give in to attraction. Women like this came with a multitude of strings attached, and Trey hadn’t thrown off his own yoke of responsibility so he could take on someone else’s.

He could see that his glare was unsettling her. He knew that she was at best unnerved, and at worst unhappy, at his presence. He did not care. He was unnerved and unhappy, damn it, so she might as well be, too.